Chapter 1
The dinner conversation the night that the word cloning entered the mainstream news was subdued, everyone lost in their own thoughts on the topic. It was near the end of the meal when Maisie spoke up quietly. "Do you think–" she cut herself off.
Claire and Owen both turned to her, Owen raising an eyebrow while Claire asked, "Do we think what?"
Maisie went to speak, paused, and tilted her head as she considered what she wanted to say. Finally, "They're talking about cloning now. We talked about it in science class." Maisie paused again, and both Claire and Owen waited patiently for her to continue. "It's not going to be long before they're talking about cloning people. One kid brought it up today. Said clones shouldn't exist." She fell silent, using her fork to push a few remaining peas around her plate. She sighed heavily, before whispering, "I'm a clone. He's saying I shouldn't exist."
Claire and Owen looked at each other in panic, neither sure how to even start on this difficult subject. Not that it wasn't something that they hadn't discussed before. But they'd been happy every day, and then every week, and now every year that it hadn't become an issue, and they could just pretend it didn't exist. Claire nodded at Owen and then towards Maisie, urging him to say something. Owen gave a tiny shrug and shake of his head, while the panic in his eyes increased. Claire didn't know why she was surprised, the tough conversations seemed to always fall on her shoulders, even if it was Owen that Maisie always gravitated to.
"Mais," Claire started. She waited until Maisie finally looked up from her plate and met her gaze. "You are a person as much as I am. You have just as much right to exist as I do." When Maisie started to shake her head, Claire added firmly, "You do. And we love you exactly as you are. You wouldn't be Maisie if you weren't you."
Maisie's gaze drifted towards Owen. While she trusted that Claire wouldn't lie to her, she always looked to Owen for confirmation and reassurance. "Seriously, kiddo," Owen nodded, before continuing with, "It matters not what someone is born…" He trailed off mid quote, looking expectantly at Maisie.
There was a pause where it looked like she was not going to say her part, before she heaved a sigh and finished the Harry Potter quote: "but what they grow to be." Owen smiled at her, and she gave a small smile in return.
"You know," Claire spoke up again, "You know you can come to us, anytime, if you want to talk about this, right?"
"Yeah," Maisie nodded. "I know." She paused, looking back down at her plate, before pushing it away and placing her silverware down. "Can I be excused?"
Again, Claire and Owen shared a quick look, before Owen nodded, "Sure." He barely got the word out before Maisie dashed out of the room, and they listened to her climb the stairs, before they heard the door to her bedroom close.
Things were silent for a few moments as the two remained sitting, before Claire let out a heavy sigh, placing her elbows on the table and her head falling into her hands. "It's going to come out."
"No," Owen shook his head. "No, it's not. We're not going to let it."
"There's only so much we can do," Claire replied wearily. "I'm actually surprised Wu hasn't said anything yet."
"That's because he's dead," Owen shrugged.
"We don't know that."
"Well, until I see him again, that's what I choose to believe," Owen dismissed. "Good riddance to him."
"Owen!"
"No, Claire, there's nothing positive about that man. The two major incidences of our lives can be tied directly back to him and his 'creations.' And he was involved in the other incidences too."
"I doubt he's the only one who knows. Others will too."
"Well, we're not going to say anything," Owen shoved his chair back and started pacing. Stress always made him antsy – he liked problems he could jump in and solve, not things he had to wait on others for.
"Of course not," Claire looked shocked. "I'd never suggest that. I'm just saying we need to be prepared. And we need to prepare Maisie. Because it is going to come out. If not Wu, someone else. We don't know even know who knows. And I'm sure there were records. Cloning isn't simple. There were bound to be…" she glanced towards the stairs before adding in a whisper, "problems along the way. I'm sure they made mistakes."
"Maisie isn't a mistake," Owen shook his head adamantly, stopping his pacing to glare at Claire.
"I know that," Claire sighed again. "That's not what I said. Why do you always assume I'm not on your side? That I'm not on Maisie's side?" She stood up as well and started gathering the dishes.
"What are you doing?" Owen looked confused as to her actions.
"What does it look like?" Claire rolled her eyes.
"I thought we were going to discuss this. You're the one who just said we need to."
"I can't do this Owen," Claire paused with a stack of dishes in her hands. "I don't want to argue about this. I don't know what you want from me. But I can't… I won't have this discussion if you're just going to blame me–"
"We need to protect her, Claire."
Claire slammed the stack of dishes onto the kitchen counter. "What do you think I'm trying to do? You're not the only one who loves her." She angrily brushed away the tears that were forming.
Owen deflated slightly, pausing behind a chair, gripping the back tightly and leaning on it. "I know that." At Claire's look of disbelief, he repeated himself. "I do know that Claire. Maisie knows that too."
"This isn't easy," Claire paused and shook her head, correcting herself. "This has never been easy. But, I'm trying Owen. I'm always trying. I want to be involved. I want to protect her too. It doesn't come easy to me, the way it does for you." She looked down at the wedding ring on her finger, and started to twist it anxiously. "Everything, everything since that night, has been for Maisie."
Owen followed her gaze to her ring, before looking at the matching one he's wearing. He stood up, scrubbing his hands down his face. "Everything?" He asked hoarsely.
Claire had been too busy focused on twisting her ring, that she hadn't followed Owen's movements. And so she didn't understand why, when she nodded, and said "Everything," a dark look crossed Owen's face before he stormed out of the room.
Unlike Maisie, who they had heard traipsing through the house all the way to her room, when Owen stormed off, it was silent. There were no heavy footsteps echoing down hallways, no slamming of doors. It was like he left the room and just disappeared. Claire wouldn't have even known where he'd gone, except a minute later she heard a loud crash coming from the garage. The sound caused her to wince, before she looked back down at the pile of dishes. Once again, she was the last one standing in the kitchen.
Her movements were habitual and not conscious, as she filled the dishwasher and started it, washed the few pots that couldn't go in, and made sure everything that needed to go back in the refrigerator had been put away. And once she was done, she paused at the junction in the hallway, debating if she should go and see Owen. If she should try to talk it out. These arguments (she didn't want to call them fights) seemed to be coming with increasing frequency.
In the end, she headed up the stairs to check in on Maisie. After getting an annoyed "come in" response from her knock, she found Maisie sprawled on her bed with her iPad. She tried not to react when she noticed the girl was hugging her orange stuffed sock monkey – the monkey that dated back to her Lockwood Estate days. The sock monkey had brought her a lot of comfort after the incident, but for the last couple of years, it had mainly sat in a place of pride on her bookshelf. She gave Maisie a quick kiss on the top of her head, told her she loved her, and reminded her to brush her teeth before bed. Maisie only gave her a grunt in response.
She paused at the doorway to the master bedroom, before retreating back down the stairs and disappearing into her office. It shared a wall with the garage, and she could hear the faint sounds of metal on metal of Owen working on his bike. The noise was familiar and comforting, and the tension in her shoulders eased a bit.
And then she did what she did best. She researched. And she started to make a plan.
x x x
Maisie breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind Claire. She had heard the crash of dishes in the kitchen followed by a crash coming from the garage. She knew that they had been fighting again. It had been happening more and more lately. They thought she didn't know, fighting in hushed whispers that stopped the moment she entered a room. She had spent years sneaking around the Lockwood Estate, creeping up on Iris, Mills and her grandfather. She remained pretty stealthy. If it wasn't for Owen's military training, followed by years of having to be hyper-vigilant around the raptors, she knew she'd be able to overhear even more. As it was, she hadn't managed to hear much, and didn't know exactly what the fighting was about. But it started around the time the tweet went viral, so she was pretty sure she could guess.
She wasn't sure if Claire could tell that she'd quickly switched apps on her iPad, not wanting Claire to see what she had been really doing. She wasn't supposed to have any social media accounts. Both Claire and Owen had been adamant about that. That she was too young.
Maisie had made a twitter account the week after the first tweet went viral. She wanted to know what was being said. And she'd spent the first week on twitter every moment she could, being sucked down the rabbit hole of tweet after tweet, thread after thread. She liked, retweeted and even made some comments of her own. But after a week, it felt repetitive and that nothing new was being said. She'd put it aside.
But today. Today people had started talking about cloning. And about cloning people. She couldn't put it down.
x x x
In the garage, Owen sat hunched on the bottom step, elbows braced on his knees, head cupped in his hands. Occasionally, he would shift his foot, bumping a couple of tools together, mimicking the sounds of him working.
Six years ago, after the Jurassic World disaster, once they'd been free to leave Costa Rica but still required to be in San Diego near Masrani headquarters, one of the first things he had bought was a second-hand motorcycle. While he loved the freedom he felt riding on a motorcycle, as opposed to being trapped in a car, what he really loved was the tinkering. For as long as he could remember, he thought best when his hands were occupied. The motorcycle purchase was about more than freedom; it was about security and comfort. His version of a child's blanket.
In those early days, Claire would often hang out while he worked. Sometimes she'd ask questions about what he was doing. Once or twice he even tried to teach her (they both quickly realized that it was a) not something Claire had any interest in learning, and b) it was the solitary act of tinkering that was soothing, and teaching Claire most definitely wasn't). But, usually, there would just be silence. He'd work on his thing, and Claire more often than not would bring out a stack of documents she was working through, or read and reply to emails on her phone. They were together, but separate; comforted just by the knowledge that the other was around.
He had been surprised the first few times it had happened, when barely a word was spoken between them. He found himself trying to come up with conversation topics, sure that Claire wasn't enjoying this. Until one evening, he found himself watching her more than tinkering, and realized that he wasn't sure he'd ever seen her so relaxed. After that, he let himself just enjoy the silence.
Following the initial craziness of the second incident, when it felt like one hundred things were happening simultaneously, he had found himself missing those evenings with his bike. That ability to just escape the chaos for a while and think through the day in the comfort of silence. And, just as importantly, spending that time alone with Claire.
The moment they started talking about a house, he started thinking about getting a new second-hand motorcycle. He had sold his previous one when he chose a life on the road. The house search took a while, as they first had to sort out the legal details behind keeping Maisie, followed by a bit of negotiating as to where they wanted to live. In the end, the where wasn't actually the hard part. It was agreed upon with little debate that they would remain in or close to San Francisco, as Claire needed to be near the DPG headquarters. The cabin Owen was building was designed to be just that – a cabin. A place to retreat to for holidays and long weekends. An escape from the city. It was never meant to be a permanent home. Even when Owen found himself initially considering the land purchase, and then sketching out plans, he found it hard to see himself living there full time. (Of course, at that point, he assumed it would be his base, but that he'd spend most of his time still exploring the open roads with his van.)
They had immediately dismissed Claire's condo as too small for the three of them. It was a one bedroom plus den and she'd been using the den as a home office (although they had hurriedly converted it into a makeshift second bedroom for Maisie). Maisie was used to having lots of room to run around and explore; to be able to make up games and adventures and then act them out. The apartment was stifling, the three of them tripping over each other.
Owen argued for a house, and Claire, to his surprise, didn't hesitate to agree. And when they started looking, he thought she'd be all over the kitchen appliances or having granite countertops, but instead, she seemed most interested in how big the backyard was, and if there was a garage or shed that he'd be able to call his own. They ended up farther from the city than originally planned, but pricing in and around San Francisco was crazy, and they weren't willing to compromise on certain features. Eventually, they had found a house with a large backyard that backed onto a small wooded area that had a park on the far side. There was an attached two car garage, three bedrooms, a large living room and kitchen, and a small den that could easily be converted into an office for Claire.
Two weeks after they had moved in, Owen had come home to be greeted by Maisie running out the front door.
"Come on, come on," she'd demanded, grabbing his hand and pulling him. "We've got a surprise for you."
She had led him into the garage, where Claire was standing beside a motorcycle, clutching tightly to the keys, and looking more nervous than he'd seen her in a long time. His mouth had dropped open in shock, his gaze swinging between the motorcycle and Claire and back again.
"Here," Claire had stepped forward and handed him the keys. "I've got my office, Maisie has the run of the backyard, it's time that you had your space too. And I know how much you enjoyed working on your last one." She had looked at him shyly over the comment and he hadn't hesitated to pull her into a giant bear hug.
"Thank you," he whispered into her ear, before pulling back slightly to look her in the eyes. "It's perfect."
"Maisie helped pick it out," Claire nodded towards the girl, who was standing off to the side, watching the two nervously.
Owen stretched out an arm, gently tugging Maisie into the hug, before repeating himself to the two. "Thank you. It's perfect."
He found himself, most nights, spending an hour or two in the garage. At the beginning, Maisie and/or Claire would often join him. Maisie had initially seemed interested in learning all she could about it, but that interest died away pretty quickly when she started to realize "tinkering" wasn't the same as "fixing" and that the goal wasn't simply to get it working. And Claire, well, he wasn't sure what happened. But she stopped coming even before Maisie. He had thought, initially, that it might be that she wanted to give the two of them time alone together, but she never resumed once Maisie stopped, and he hadn't been able to bring himself to ask her why. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
And now, three years later, the garage was his refuge. When he retreated out there, neither Maisie nor Claire followed him, and he could guarantee himself a couple of hours of alone time.
Usually. He had discovered ne day that if he didn't make any noise out there, that they would wonder what was happening, and his alone time would be over.
He'd been sitting on the step just mulling over his day, when there had been a knock on the door behind him that led into the house, before it inched open and Claire's head had poked out. "Owen, everything okay?"
"What?" he'd looked up, confused by the intrusion.
"Normally I can hear you tinkering from my office," Claire tilted her head towards the wall the garage shared with the office. "It's been silent tonight. Everything okay?"
"Oh, sorry," Owen gave her a half smile. "Just tired."
After that evening, he'd made it a point to make some noise on the nights he just wanted to sit. Just enough not to raise any suspicions and bring anyone into his space.
And tonight… tonight he was brooding. And he definitely didn't want company.
In the beginning, after the second incident (and he still couldn't get over the fact that there had been two incidents now), things had moved quickly between him and Claire. At the time, it had all felt right. And there really wasn't any time for thinking too carefully or deeply about what was happening.
Mills was dead, and so Maisie had no official guardian. They'd found some paperwork (which they suspected was fake), including a birth certificate for Maisie. When the news started breaking the next day, Iris had showed back up at the Estate, having left the previous evening and gone into Orrick for the night. While she had been happy to continue to look after Maisie, even she agreed, that it wouldn't be the best long term solution. Maisie was too young and Iris was getting too old to be chasing after her and caring for her on her own.
Maisie had attached herself to Owen like a barnacle, and wasn't willing to let go. It had taken some convincing (okay, a lot of convincing, including Claire reaching out to many of her connections) to get approval for Maisie to stay with the two. And even when they did, it was still temporary.
The word adoption arose almost immediately in conversation, but it's not a simple or fast process. They weren't married (and, technically, they weren't even dating – there hadn't even been time to have that conversation). And that was only one hurdle.
It was only two months after the incident that Claire approached him and suggested marriage. That it would be the "best thing for Maisie" and that it was a necessary step if they wanted to actually adopt her. There was absolutely nothing about the proposal that was romantic. It was a business deal through and through.
But, even saying that, he knew Claire wouldn't have suggested it if she didn't want to marry him at least a little. It was not like she would've given the same proposal to Franklin. And besides, since the first night they'd finally been able to leave the Estate with Maisie, and had ended up back at Claire's small condo, they'd been sharing a bed. Without thinking, without planning, they'd fallen back into a couple routine, now with the addition of a kid.
And it wasn't like they were just two adults who happened to be living in the same place – it had only taken two nights before Claire had been startled awake by Owen tossing and turning, mumbling about Blue, in the throws of a nightmare. She'd woken him up, and instinctively they'd fallen back on old habits, soothing away nightmares by getting lost in each other.
He had thought it might be awkward the next morning, but when he'd finally woken up (alone) and pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt (he didn't feel comfortable in just boxers around Maisie) and wandered out into the kitchen, Claire had greeted him with a soft kiss and asked him how he was feeling. And it was like that was just the simple switch that needed to be flicked, and all was right again in the world. Or, at least, he had thought so, at the time.
And so, when Claire raised the idea of marriage, and knowing that it was one of the hurdles on the path to adoption, he'd said yes. They were married only a week later, just a small courthouse wedding with immediate family (Karen, Zach, Gray and Karen's new boyfriend on Claire's side, and his parents and brother on his), followed by a nice dinner with a few friends who were nearby (including Zia and Franklin).
Before they started the adoption proceedings, they had sat Maisie down and talked it through with her. They let her know that it was up to her if they went forward or not. That either way, she would be able to stay with them, and that she'd still be able to see Iris. And that, most importantly, she didn't have to decide that moment.
It was on the one year anniversary of the incident that Maisie had approached them and said that she'd like to be adopted. They had initiated the proceedings the next week. It had been almost two years and they were just now, finally, starting to hear their lawyers talk about the end being in sight. It was expected to be finalized over the next couple of weeks.
He'd been looking forward to this moment, because while he viewed the three of them as a family, Maisie would continue to make small remarks indicating she didn't. Owen was hoping that once the adoption was finalized, that maybe, whatever it was that was holding Maisie back, would be removed. Most of all, he was hoping that she'd finally feel comfortable enough to call them her parents; to call them mom and dad.
But now, as he sat there on the bottom step, he wondered if it was all in vain. That if the illusion they had been presenting as a happy family was just that, an illusion. That while he had been thinking that they were happy, Maisie couldn't bring herself to call them her parents, and Claire had married him for Maisie. He worried now, that if they hadn't encountered Maisie that fateful night three years ago, that he and Claire would simply have gone their separate ways again.
He believed that Claire loved him. But loving someone and wanting to be with them didn't always go hand in hand. Had Claire actually chosen him? Or had she chosen Maisie, and he was part of the package?
He groaned, and rubbed his palms against his eyes. He felt the cool metal of his wedding ring brush his forehead, and he brought his hands back down, his gaze latching on to the ring. The sight of it use to bring him so much joy, and now it felt tainted.
In a moment of rage, he pulled it from his finger, fist closing over it, hiding it from view, before he swung his arm, and flung it across the garage, where, with a tiny clang, it hit the garage door, before falling to rest on the ground. But he didn't even notice, tears blurring his vision, his head already back in his hands.
Thanks for taking the time to read. Please drop me a review and let me know what you think. I'm always interested in what your favourite (or least favourite) part is. And what you think might be coming in the future. It's pretty loosely planned, but I'm always open to ideas for new twists. :)
